4. What is the relationship between Administrative Procedures and the public's rights and interests?
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- Last updated：2019-07-18
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According to Article 1 of Administrative Procedures Law (hereinafter referred to as the "Law"): "In order to make administrative actions comply with fair, open and democratic principles, and enforced in accordance with laws, this Law is set forth to protect personal rights and interests, to increase administrative efficiency and efficacy and to enhance the public trust in the administration."
This provision not only discloses the rationale behind the Law but also honors the Law, the summary of which is as follows:
I. Implementation of administration through the law: The primary principle of Administrative Law is to administer according to law. If this principle is violated by the authorities, civil servants as individuals shall be responsible for civil, criminal and administrative liabilities, while the administrative body shall be responsible for related legal liabilities.
II. Maintaining the accuracy of act: Administrative act confirms and forms the rights and obligations of individuals. To confirm or form such rights and obligations, a procedure has to be followed that ensures the accuracy of facts and legal applicability.
III. Providing people with participation opportunities: Because the promulgation of administrative decree and the undertaking of administrative actions are common practices for administrative agencies and because such actions tend to have close relationships with the rights and obligations of people, with such actions being primarily unilaterally administrative, in modern society, when government agencies are making decisions concerning individual rights and interests, people shall have the opportunity to participate according to democratic principles. For example, when an interested party submits an application according to law, this begins administrative procedures (referred to proviso of Article 34 of the Law); unless otherwise prescribed by law or regulations, an application filed under law with an administrative authority may be in writing or oral. (refer to the first section of Article 35)；During the administrative procedure, the party may, in addition to producing evidence on his own initiative, file an application to the administrative authority for inquisition into facts and evidence (regulations of Article 37 of the Law); An administrative authority shall, before rendering an administrative disposition to impose restraint on the freedom or right of a person or to deprive him of the same, give the person subject to the disposition an opportunity to state his opinions, unless a notice has been given to the person subject to the disposition under article 39 hereof to enable him to state his opinions or it has been decided that a hearing will be held, except where it is otherwise prescribed by law.（Article 102 of the Law）。.
IV. Reduction of Administrative litigation procedure: Taking Article 109 of the Law as an example, if the opponent is not convinced by the action taken after a hearing, the opponent may file for revocation of a suit and is no administrative appeal or other prior proceedings are required. To file a suit to confirm the invalidity of administrative actions, the plaintiff is only required to have applied to the original action agency for confirmation of invalidity and been declined, and is not required to go through petition procedures before filing such a lawsuit (Article 113 of the Law).
V. Protect people's rights and interests: Under the principles of democracy and law, all official procedures have the ultimate goal of protecting personal rights and interests; no procedure can lack this, including administrative procedures. In addition to the four points mentioned above, many provisions in the Law include rights to file review; rights to apply for civil servant exemptions and rights to verification of facts or evidence. These have been established to protect individual rights and interests.